Tips for Energy Managers in New Roles

During last week’s webinar entitled “Energy Managers: Carve Out Your Niche“, Pulse Energy’s Craig Handley used examples from his experience as RMIT University’s Energy Manager to illustrate the challenges that energy managers often face when they enter a newly created role in an organization.  Craig offered advice for energy managers on earning respect and credibility in an organization, tips on getting energy management plans approved by executives, and suggestions on how to embed energy management into organizational culture.  In addition, there was one more piece of advice that Craig prepared but did not have time to present at the webinar that we can present on this blog: how to keep things simple.

The main benefit of keeping things simple is that it’s the least complicated projects that are the most likely to get approved and leas likely to fail in the long term.  Craig recommends putting yourself in the shoes of the staff that will have to install and maintain a new energy saving retrofit.  As an example of what not to do, he tells the story of a complex automated lighting control system that failed in the “on” mode.  Three different contractors were needed to asses and fix the problem over a period of four days, while in the meantime the lights were on 24/7 and environmentally conscious occupants were frustrated at not being able to simply flick a light switch off.  Technology just for the sake of technology does not tend to add up.

It’s also important to ask the maintenance and project management teams for feedback, for two reasons.  First of all, they may have already seen some energy saving solutions tried out in their organization and they may have feedback on how and why they failed, and how they could be better implemented the next time.  And secondly, asking for feedback will reduce the likelihood that the new energy retrofit becomes a big headache for the facilities and management teams.